Which nations represent order and good?

[Ewierl]

Personally, I consider LA Man to be one of the most positive socities, in terms of internal benevolence (benefits for own people) and a lack of any major sketchy practices (e.g. institutionalized torture or human sacrifice).

In an age when death-magic and world-consuming powerhouses spread widely, with magic on the decline, the nation with strong civic/mundane educational practices has a big edge on the "benevolence" count. While most nations are in decline and decay, Man has turned its decline into a new path that is only just beginning, and would reap serious long-term benefits. Ulm turned away from the path of craft/technology between MA and LA, leaving Man to carry the banner of post-magic progress.

[Edi]

I would generally say that MA and LA Arco, Man (all eras), Eriu, Tir na n'Og, Tien Chi (practically all eras) and Ulm in EA and MA could be characterized as good. Utg�rd doesn't seem too bad either. Pythium in both MA and LA is also fairly good. MA Mictlan is perhaps the most directly goody-twoshoes nation. Ermor in EA is also a fairly nice one.

Marverni and the Van nations as well, except for the bit about the occasional human sacrifice.

From the point of view of being a citizen of one of them, that is. Hell, I'd pick any one of those for myself when compared to EA or LA Mictlan, any era Abysia, Gath, Hinnom or Ashdod, Yomi, Shinuyama, Lanka, R'lyeh or the other nonhuman nations or Machaka. Marignon is out due to ****ty living conditions and misery in the MA and devil worship and blood sacrifices in the LA.

MA Tien Chi would perhaps be the most tranquil and ordered one, or perhaps MA Ulm, with the greatest safety factor for the average citizen.

[Endoperez]

MA Agartha is nice, but sad. It's orderly and good, but already in the decline. It's so sad, really, especially because Agarthans mostly are worse than the other races.

[Sawyer]

EA and MA Kailasa never really seemed like they meant to harm anyone...

[moderation]

Edi said:
I would generally say that MA and LA Arco, Man (all eras), Eriu, Tir na n'Og, Tien Chi (practically all eras) and Ulm in EA and MA could be characterized as good. Utg�rd doesn't seem too bad either. Pythium in both MA and LA is also fairly good. MA Mictlan is perhaps the most directly goody-twoshoes nation. Ermor in EA is also a fairly nice one.

You know, I was reading in the manual that EA Arco keeps slaves to support their way of life. There's not enough detail to tell whether MA and LA Arco do this. However it does rather complicate the question of who is evil if they do keep slaves. Maybe KO can help us out here.

[TheMenacer]

I think LA Agartha is probably one of the "good guys", as far as anyone can be in Dominions 3. They may be all about necromancy and suchlike, but it seems more like they really respect the dead Pale Ones and at their very least ethical, they use mindless corpses as slave labor, which is arguable one way or the other as far as ethics go considering that it's not like they chain up some poor sap's soul for all of eternity or something, they just use abandoned bodies for heavy lifting. Pretty interesting considering that undead are cool as hell and every single other game always makes anyone who trucks with them out to be worse than six Hitlers tied together with snakes.

[Kristoffer O]

I'd say slavery is less common in the later ages of Arcoscephale. A distant war of conquest brings less slaves than war with neighbours. Still, they probably use slaves for utilities sake. Slaves make the lives of the rich pleasant. Why abolish something like that. If you dislike how they are treated, treat your slaves good

I would say most dominions nations use slaves to some extent. Abolishment is a quite new invention, and has always (more or less) come in conflict with political interests of competitive rulers of the nation. If times are peaceful, culture and religion thriving, slavery mighht be questioned. But if the nation competes with other nations over land, wealth or other resources, a slavery that further political interests of the nations less likely to be questioned. Religion might be exception to this. Since faith does not need manual labour to prosper it can safely stand against slavery and inhuman treatment and actually benefit from it.

I dominions you might speculate that a nation with strong dominion and order probably is more likely to abolish slavery. Every one is a believer and everyone knows his place in society. If everyone is working properly, there is perhaps less need for slaves. On the other hand, slavery in an orderly dominion might be ordered by god and less likely to disappear. If priests of a centralized faith have a strong influence, part in competition with the temporal powers of the nation, things might look even brighter. Pythium for example might have a history of slavery, but if your dominion is benevolent it might be that the Theurgs are taking a stand against it.

So to answer the question on MA and LA Arco: Your priestesses are not very influential, but might well oppose slavery, depending on your god's dominion. The general populace is probably quite satisfied with the slaves they got. If you have a long period of peace you might imagine that slaves become luxury, since no new slaves are imported. With slaves increasing in price they might get treated better, get possibility to buy themselves free, and eventually slavery will become marginalized.
The sibyls might place a ban on slavery, also depending on the will of god.

[thejeff]

Slavery was also different from place to place and at different times. Historically the kind of racial, generational slavery we had in the US was rare. Usually it was war captives and there were often ways to earn freedom.

Not to defend slavery, but it was a way of life in much of the ancient world. To class societies as evil just because they had slaves is glossing over the differences. Greece, Rome, biblical Israel, Egypt, all the foundations of western civilization. All used slaves.

[moderation]

Kristoffer O said:
I dominions you might speculate that a nation with strong dominion and order probably is more likely to abolish slavery. Every one is a believer and everyone knows his place in society. If everyone is working properly, there is perhaps less need for slaves. On the other hand, slavery in an orderly dominion might be ordered by god and less likely to disappear. If priests of a centralized faith have a strong influence, part in competition with the temporal powers of the nation, things might look even brighter. Pythium for example might have a history of slavery, but if your dominion is benevolent it might be that the Theurgs are taking a stand against it.

Hmm, here's a tricky thing though: Nazi Germany was an orderly place, but they also did many horrible things I won't bother mentioning. So it seems difficult to say that order equals goodness. When I started the thread, I was probably thinking of the old D&D cliche where lawful = good and chaotic = evil, and perhaps other people are too. I suppose one could say that Nazi Germany had death scales if you were to translate it into Dominions.

Or maybe there could be scales that explicitly define "goodness" vs "badness" or enlightened and unenlightened scales or purely roleplaying or character related scales. So then maybe Nazi Germany prefers "badness" scales and EA Mictlan like unenlightened or barbaric scales because they blood sacrifice. Of course this is probably not practical, but it interesting to speculate on what it would mean since we've opened up this can of worms.

[OmikronWarrior]

Russia had a very odd form of slavery. People essentially sold themselves into it for a given time frame, usually a year. The practice obviously developed as a way to hire laborers for farms. However, since slaves did not pay taxes, in the 16th century a lot of Russian elites sold themselves into a gentler kind of slavery to get off of tax rolls!

In general, however, I'd say slavery is an evil institution, but its existence does not doom the entire civilization to being evil.